Happy Holidays!

It is - officially - the first day of Winter!
(I am ever so slightly excited... or, you know, really excited.)

Happy holidays to those of you celebrating, and well wishes to everyone!

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm off to find my fluffy socks...


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I should also mention that I'm going out of town for a few days and I'm not sure if I'll be able to post. However, at the moment, I definitely don't have time to write a post. Will make up for this lack of reading material later!

Writing Poetry & Sharing With The Public

Over the past few days, I've started writing again for the first time in a while - and by that I mean writing something that I can stand to look over later. It would seem that I have started to find my flare for words again, which is kind of nice because, for several months there, my depression was drowning out everything that was even slightly useful.

Anyway, the other night, I pulled up a new document and began to write strands of words that had popped into my head when I saw a photograph. At first, I thought I would set the words aside and incorporate them into something later. Which I did, only, later was about fifteen minutes later, instead of several weeks.

What started out as a line, slowly twisted and turned until it became two, then three, and so on until, by the end of the evening, I had written over half of a quite decent poem.

I cannot properly express my joy over this occasion.

Poetry, supposedly, doesn't make anyone any money. So, I'm sure a lot of people I know will be confused over why this is so wonderful to me. But writing, to me, has never been about money. And poetry has a special, if not strange, place in my heart.

In college, several semesters back, I took a creative writing course. Experience has taught me that a lot of creative writing courses begin with a poetry section, so I can't say that I was entirely surprised when the course I was in started that way, too. The only problem was, at that point in my life, I didn't write poetry. It wasn't my forte (a point which my high school creative writing teacher would probably protest, but that's another story). I only wrote poems when forced, and in my opinion, all of them were awful. I didn't even read poetry, because if it was anything like mine, it couldn't possibly be worth reading.

So, when it was announced that we were starting with poetry, I panicked. Certainly that meant that I was going to fail that part of the class or, worse yet, the professor would like my work again and the class would be as good as useless to me. But, you know, the funniest thing happened. With this poetry, I decided to try something new and I actually tried to care. We wrote our first poem sitting outside on the campus grounds, flinging the words out of pens carelessly. And then, under the trees, we edited our words a bit before handing them over to the professor. She sat with us, went over our papers with her pen, and pointed out all of the bits that were awful. Then she sent us home to edit our work and instructed us to bring it back during the next class. When we came back, we wrote another poem - and this one we read aloud to our classmates, then edited. And this process continued through out the semester until, slowly but surely, I learned to write poetry. I began to excel in it. And, after a couple of weeks, I even learned to like it.

But for all that I like it now and for all that I understand it, poetry still remains one of the most difficult things to write for me. Writing poetry is - for me - a process that requires a lot of care and attention, and it requires that I be attached to my work.

So, after months of detachment and depression in various stages, I'm finally starting to feel what I'm working on again and I'm finally pleased with it. Hence, this means a great deal to me.

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There's another thing that makes this special to me, though.

I haven't been writing just any poetry. Currently, I am working on a small collection of poetry centering around people I have seen or met recently. And, since this project has an idea behind it and a defined number of poems within it, it's actually going to be seen by the public - which is pretty cool if you ask me, because it'll be the first time that any of my work has been viewed by someone outside my family, close friends, and creative writing classmates. 

I'm a part of a couple lovely writing communities over on Livejournal and, at the moment, I'm only participating as a reader. But this collection is going to mark the first change in that, and I really don't think I could pick a better piece to start with. 

Signed, 

Mildly Excited

 

Music Recommendation: Pouring Pain

For the last few days, I've been working on fixing my iPod, clearing out all of the old music and putting on new music. Naturally, I came out of this experience with a few songs stuck in my head. This song, for me, is particularly sticky. And, since it also holds a special place in my heart, I'm dropping it off here. This band usually isn't one that everyone takes to, but I hope you enjoy.


Pouring Pain - Ima Robot

Happy listening!

Ink Wednesday

This is not necessarily a fiction writing related link but, as far as I'm concerned, everyone should know about this site. I was a writing tutor for a while during my first two years of college and I have to say, had students made use of this site more often, there would have been fewer MLA/ASA formatting mistakes to explain in detail.

So, since finals are upon (some of) us, have a useful link:

• Purdue OWL: An online writing laboratory (see: house of useful information) provided by Purdue University. Also known as: A wonderful writing resource for high school/college/university students that can be used as an easy access point for learning academic writing/formatting rules.

(Note: Yes, I have been looking at my MLA manual again recently and, once again, I've been reminded of how irritating the formatting rules are and how much time I could have saved simply by using this website. My apologies for the miniature rant of sorts.)

Hopefully you'll find some use in it.

(Note 2: I'm not actually sure if this site applies to those of you who live in countries other than the United States. I'll probably look into that eventually, but use your judgement for the time being.)

Book Review: Neverwhere

Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman

"Richard Mayhew is a plain man with a good heart -- and an ordinary life that is changed forever on the day that he stops to help a girl he finds bleeding on a London sidewalk. From that moment forward he is propelled into a world he never dreamed existed -- a dark subculture flourishing in abandoned subway stations and sewer tunnels below the city -- a world far stranger and more dangerous than the only one he has ever known..." (Cover blurb on book.)

Some years ago, my cousin recommended to me a book called American Gods by Neil Gaiman. At that point in my life, I was more interested in YA fiction and anything to do with Harry Potter - and, to be honest, I wasn't planning on trying anything new anytime soon. But, after a few years and several more conversations regarding said book, I picked it up at a Barnes and Noble on my way home. And, in a way that was quite surprising to me, when I started reading it I fell in love.

Writing style is something I watch for in books. A book can be good without a great writing style. In fact, that's usually what I run across - good books with something to be desired in language use. So, when I find a book with a writing style I love, I like to track down everything else that the author has written and buy one book at a time, reading as slowly as possible and enjoying each book like a fine dessert.

That is how Neverwhere came to be in my hands. (I bought my copy from a bookstore that no longer exists - a fact that tickles me a bit every time I think about it.)

Neverwhere was Gaiman's debut novel. And while I'm not quite as enraptured with this novel as I am with American Gods, it's good beginning and I imagine that it probably made a decent splash upon being published.

Neverwhere is a Sci-fi/Fantasy novel about a world called London Below, where people who fall through the cracks in society tend to end up. It's a dark, dangerous sort of place where creatures will pull you down into the gap by the tube train and there is a market place that moves around. It's a place filled with quirky characters - such as assassins, nobility, rat-speakers, door-openers, and even an angel - as well as plenty of opportunities for adventure.

At first, the novel is following Richard Mayhew through his normal, day-to-day life. And, while entertaining to read, it seems like a rather boring life. Then he stumbles upon a girl named Door, and his entire world changes. From there on out, you're on a dark, thrilling sort of adventure, and it's a pleasure to read.

While I never became extremely attached to the characters, they never failed to bring a smile to my face. Mr. Vandemar's antics, in particular, often made me laugh (And it might be a strange thing to say, but I've never found a villain quite so adorable as him. The imagery with him is just... incredibly amusing.). And, while a bit self-centered, the marquis has a certain charm to him that landed him in the position of my favorite character.

The settings were described with enough detail for a mind to cling to and invent its own imagery, which I think was a good opportunity to offer in such a novel as this one. I got a great sense of wanting to see the Floating Market while reading Neverwhere, and that's a fascination that has stuck with me ever since my first read.

On the overall, I found Neverwhere to be completely entertaining. It's strong in fantasy, with lots of imagination, and the story-telling is lovely. The characters left an amusing sort of impression and the settings were interesting. There was, admittedly, room for more development in Neverwhere, but it was a fairly satisfying read as is.

While not a very serious sort of novel, Neverwhere brought to mind a point that has stuck with me ever since:

If I stumbled upon another world filled with adventures and an entirely new culture to adjust to, would I ever want to return to this one?

This probably isn't a book for everyone, but if urban fantasy is up your alley, I'd recommend it.

This book can be found in bookstores and online:



Neverwhere


Happy Reading!

Ink Wednesday

This week, I have only one link to bring you. But, as long as it helps, that's all that matters, right?

I discovered this blog about two months ago. I don't remember how I stumbled across it, but I'm very glad for whatever it was that pointed me in this direction.

You see, when you're writing a novel, it's easy to get into a mode (or we hope it is) where you have a feeling for your novel's point and the drive to take it there. And then, quite suddenly, you have a book (or part of one, anyway) sitting in front of you and you've written it! That's a pretty nice experience, if you ask me. 

But that book isn't done, yet. You still have lots of revisions to do and when you start reading what you've written, you will most likely find that a character uses the same expression whenever they're mad/happy about something. All of your characters are furrowing their eyebrows whenever they're perplexed. Several of your characters have the nervous habit of biting their lip. Whenever a character is around their crush, their heart flutters. That's okay. Real people have these kinds of feelings and express themselves in these sorts of ways. However, people also vary the way that they express themselves and, more importantly, not everyone does the same thing when they're upset, or joyful, or exhausted.

It's easy to repeat expressions when you're in the zone, or even when you're just writing a bit at a time. Sometimes, it's difficult to think of another way for a character to express a certain emotion, so (for the time being) we just stick them with the usual signals. But when you're revising or feeling motivated enough to look up or contemplate a new form of expression, it's nice to have somewhere to start.

• The Bookshelf Muse: A blog providing a nice set of weblog thesauruses for writers and, I suppose, other people who might be searching for such things. I haven't actually explored enough of this blog to tell you for sure, but there's a chance there's other neat stuff on here, too.

Anyway, this blog comes highly recommended from me. So, check it out!

Music Recommendation: Nena Lena

As you have probably already noticed (or guessed), I like to write to music. I give my novels, scenes, and characters theme songs - which we'll discuss later. This year, I've been working on a horror sort of novel on and off all year. This is that novel's theme song.

Nena Lena - A Toys Orchestra *

* Unfortunately, I was unable to find this song on Youtube. However, you can find it on Playlist.com occasionally...


Happy listening... if you feel motivated enough to hunt it down.

Writing Tips: Names

Well, it's December 2nd and I can officially say that I have little to no idea where the time in 2011 has gone. How terribly disconcerting...

But, thankfully, we're not here to discuss the year in review (At least, not yet. Maybe on New Years Eve? Although, I rather doubt I'll be around to post.). No, this evening, we're going to discuss writing - because it's been far too long since I've talked about that and this is a writing blog.

(Note: I'm probably going to sound a bit strange in this post, but hopefully you'll be able to see what I'm getting at without too much extra effort.) 


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Names are important to stories.

Have you ever sat down to begin working on a novel or story idea... only to not get anywhere because your characters don't have names, yet?

I suppose it's possible that not all authors spend a great deal of time fretting over the names of their characters. Maybe some people begin to write and names just fall out of their head without any effort at all. If that's the way naming works for you, congratulations, you're lucky. But this post isn't really about how easy or difficult it is to find a prefect name for your characters, this post is about the importance of the names you give them.

Choosing a name, is like choosing the perfect word in a haiku poem. Anyone can crank out seventeen syllables and put them in the proper form within a matter of minutes, but the syllables don't matter quite as much as what you're saying.

Remember, in a haiku you only have seventeen syllables to make your point. A mere seventeen syllables to write a poem worth reading, a poem that will stick with the reader long after they first read it. That's not much to work with, if you really think about it.

But you're writing a short story, a novel, or something along those lines. You, of course, may make use of many more words. Sometimes, you can even use hundreds of thousands of words. What could one word possibly matter in all of that?

(Well, you'd better hope a lot, because your novel is only a few hundred thousand words at most in a pile of billions of words sitting on somebody's desk. But that's not really what we're talking about, is it?)

Actually, we are talking about that, in a way.

You see, one word in your novel probably doesn't make that much of a dent. Most people aren't going to pick through your novel with a fine-toothed comb, crossing out words and writing in other words they think might fit better. Most people are just going to read your novel.

But, there is one word that they will notice, without a doubt (probably several, if your novel has more than one character with a name). And that word, will be a name.

Have you ever met someone and, right from the moment he or she introduced him/herself, thought that their name really didn't suit them?

Perhaps, you gave them a nickname that seemed more fitting. Or, maybe they already had a nickname. Whatever the case, it suddenly became easier for you (and possibly others) to connect with that person.

Well, just like people in real life, your characters develop a personality as you write them. Their personality becomes fine-tuned as you rewrite or revise your story or novel. And - with any luck - by the time your book or story is published, your characters are exactly what you wanted to see (hopefully the rest of your book or story is, too).

Maybe your published work picks up readers and they love your piece, too. Maybe everybody thinks the plot is great and your characters are wonderful. And, perhaps, they're on board with your voice.

That sounds like a great start. It's a great start I've seen before. But you know what can really derail me when I'm reading a novel?

A name that doesn't fit a character.

Your novel may be the best written work ever to grace the face of this planet. But if that sweet, innocent, generous character with a great smile and wild hair has a name that sounds completely out of place, I don't buy it.

I spend a ridiculous amount of time searching for the perfect name when I'm building up a character. And, if everything goes my way, I usually find it. But there are several characters I have whose perfect names I have never found and, in the same way I won't buy a book if I can't bridge the gap between a character and his or her name, I cut those characters out of my story or novel or I type NAME throughout the entire work until I figure it out.

No matter which way I choose to go about handling the situation, though, one thing is for sure:

I cannot publish a piece if I cannot find a proper fitting name for the character sitting in the corner.

Choosing a name for a character is as important as choosing the right word in a poem. A name makes people able to relate to your character. It helps people understand them.

If a name doesn't fit, it's going to trip your readers up and disrupt the flow. And coming from someone who has been tripped up in the middle of a novel before, trust me when I say you don't want that to occur.